A person of ordinary skill in the art knows there is a wide variety of body armor apparatus which are tailored to address an ever increasing number of threats from various weapons and caliber of projectiles. This invention is tailored to address hard armor inserts that offer protection from bullets. A person of ordinary skill in the art would also recognize the U.S. Department of Justice is the government entity responsible for establishing testing criteria for a full array of body armor types that offer protection ranging from needle injections to stabbings to small caliber bullets and for hard armor inserts that provide protection from bullets and armor piercing rifle rounds which are defined by the U.S. Department of Justice in the published standard titled “Ballistic Resistance of Body Armor NIJ Standard-0101.06” dated July 2008, where this invention addresses the type of body armor described in the NIJ standard as stand-alone hard armor inserts that are inserted into components described in the NIJ Standard as armor carriers which are garments that secure the armor to the user and the standard describes the acceptance testing procedures that this invention apparatus must pass including a test that allows for only a certain amount of backface signature which is the maximum allowable backface signature that may be produced which is the greatest extent of indentation in the backing material caused by the non-perforation impact on the armor.
The prior art of hard armor inserts with ceramic strike faces and debris collection layers are capable of capturing the bullet fragments and stopping fragments from perforating through the armor and entering into a person's body however there has been considerable research regarding hard armor inserts aimed to minimize the risk of bodily damage from the energy generated from projectile impact causing blunt force trauma to nearby organs, nerves, circulatory vessels and skeletal structures which to some extent is addressed by the NIJ standard limiting the allowable back face signature which also addresses to some extent a phenomena described in the literature as hydrostatic shock where sometime fatal injuries are incurred such as brain damage and hemorrhages where the projectile impacted body armor located remote from the points of injury such as to the abdomen or a limb.
The body armor industry is on a continuous quest to protect our soldiers, police and security personnel where protection goes beyond just stopping the bullet and containing the bullet fragments but to reduce injuries caused by the energy generated upon projectile impact.
At least in view of the above, it would be desirable to improve upon the prior art of protective body armor inserts by adding a feature that offers further protection to personnel from bullets. It would also be desirable to provide novel methods for manufacturing such protective armor